A rubbish recycling facility! ! ! !

I love listening to people telling me about their childhood, but they have to be nippy, or I will be telling them with a little more relish than perhaps I should about mine, there is a necessity in most people to share their own enthusiasm, a need, which is often in their opinion a more exciting past than anyone else.

I was born at the beginning of the Second World War in a large Kentish town by the side of a curving sheltered shore, a beautiful bay to the left of the town and a splendid sandy beach that stretched for miles for my little legs to run along. Bracing sea air mixed with the smell of coffee, fish and chips, hot-dogs with burnt onions, and candy humbugs up Harbour Street all mixed in with the smell from the sands and harbour activities.

Ramsgate:

In some places a lovely town with sprawling smug suburbs, Prestedge, all new and posh. Newington with lots and lots of prefabs now all replaced. Whitehall with its ever-pumping water works down Whitehall road.

The civic pride of the beautiful Palace theatre in the high street and the many shiny shops full to bursting with jostling holidaymakers.

Its many pubs waiting for Saturday night when the music started, bursting with revelry, everyone was singing, dancing and laughing, everyone was happy.

Getting to the town centre as fast as us boys legs would carry us. There were the impressive gas cylinders that could be seen from any point in the town at the end of St. Luke's avenue and the smelly coke works at the bottom of Boundary Road with the acrid stench rising high over the town tickling the nostrils.

This was my world where for a tup'penny ticket we could spend all day in the station waiting anxiously for the thunder of the next 'schools class' to appear over the viaduct pulling ten or twelve coaches full of carnival spirited children with their parents spilling out onto the platforms accompanied by the roaring clouds of expelling unwanted steam from the trains cylinders into the station.

Those smells; Freshly baked bread up King Street, hot pies, piece pudding and fagots drifting out of Woods after a night in the Odeon.    

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On the subject title:

On the beautiful coast overlooking the channel; I'm the first to agree with recycling, but for goodness sake how daft can this council get. Surely they are joking!

A few years ago Bournemouth was, like a lot of seaside towns in this country, suffering from a depression with the lack of tourists visiting the town. So the council, (all three parties at the time) put their combined heads together and came up with the idea of a centre that could accommodate functions for the benefit of many of the town needs. The BIC came out of the many numerous meetings (The Bournemouth International Centre) it was built ahead of schedule seventeen months later, right on the sea front, concert hall, ballroom, function rooms and restaurants, also a conference centre, of which two of the main party political persuasions have used since, filling the many hotels to capacity. One of these main parties has tried to book for next year, but unfortunately for them this centre is fully booked for the foreseeable future. Each weekend the main dual carriage way is full of coaches and cars flooding into the town bringing in the much-needed finances, filling the hotels. There are no empty shops, no derelict spaces, no dirty streets, no unwanted litter. The place is thriving beyond even the dreams of the councillors who first thought of the idea.  

The rocks on the western under cliff where many of us children of my age  collected winkles for Sunday tea, has been turned into a concreted area that I'm sure, with a little bit of forethought, could accommodate a facility such as the BIC.

Whatever is decided let the people in the town build it, give the employment to the people of Thanet that are having difficulty finding work, not give the project to an off shore company who are in it to drain the ratepayers pockets of their hard earned cash. 

Dare I say it, like they did with Pleasurama?

 

Just a thought        

Thanks for stopping by, please call again.

I never win anything in raffles or tombola where there is a draw from tickets that I have purchased from my small pension. But just before Christmas I did, you could have knocked me down with a feather. I was presented with a small box with a bulb in it, along with some dirt and a pot to put it in.

‘To late’ I was told!

‘Won’t flower for another year’ was the advice from all the experts in the club.

‘Put it in the pot and forget it until next autumn, somewhere dark.’

One of my so-called friends even gave me some seeds of the same species.

 ‘Won’t grow yet Al’, you have got to be patient with these little devils.’

John Wyndham’s “Day of the Triffids” is NOT science fiction, no more than six weeks later this bulb that won’t grow until next Autumn has taken over its own little corner of the kitchen, and I swear to you moves around at night time trying to escape outside, perhaps to take over the world. I’m a bit reluctant to get too close unless it bites me, or spits in my direction, my hand shakes a little when my tea wants a 20 second nuke’ in the microwave, can’t quite remember how they bumped off us humans.

The seeds?

Oh yes the seeds, well they obviously want to catch up with their big sister as you can see in the picture.

Thanks for stopping by.

 

 

An excursion to a garage sale advertised in the local paper the other week just before Christmas, I discovered under a pile of old papers a calendar from way back from 1958. I remembered seeing this calendar that hung in a workshop all those years ago and the paintings each month as you turned the pages over, the same character on each of them with different humorous implications. It was Hilda! The bumptious lass that made us all laugh at her antics.

Mentioning it over the club a couple of nights ago I was very surprised many had not heard of her, so I have endeavoured to illustrate in my own way one of Duane Bryers famous paintings. Sadly he passed away a couple of years ago, but lived to a grand old age and I am sure he will be greatly missed.

I hope he will forgive me for my attempt, but I hope my effort will bring back some small attention to such a brilliant artist and humorist of our time. 

 

 

Thanks for calling.

 

 

It seems such a short time ago the fragile miracle of life that was put in my arms after I had showered one summer evening; the delicate soft skin of a newborn baby against me that had that distinctive smell of freshly digested milk from her mother.

I remember there was uncontrollable moisture in my eyes rising from deep down inside as I looked at such a beautiful tiny wonder in my arms. She didn’t cry, just snuggled down into my bare chest and closed her eyes. From that day on I have watched from a distance her grow into a very photogenic young miss.

Sitting in front of me for a good two hours the other day, she never seemed to move an inch, intent on her new tablet from Santa.  Nervous at first that what I drew would disappoint her, she just gave me a very beguiling smile and said “Don’t worry Uncle, I’m sure it will be fine.” And carried on with studying her new toy, content and quite happy with the silence, disturbed only by the rustling of the trees outside in the isolated countryside. It was an idyllic situation she told me afterwards that we had both created together which very often she yearned for back home in the city.

My attempt to capture her stunning young adolescent features with my pencil over the last few days has kept me occupied for many hours since, and although I am not completely satisfied, it does I think show the very determined character behind such a pretty face, believe me, this young miss is going places. Perhaps fortunate enough to have devoted parents who have spared no expense in an education that has given her the deportment and self-discipline far beyond her 14 years.

 

Thanks for stopping by.  



London Barge out of Ramsgate, rounding the Forland

a memory of my childhood just after the last war.

My first sketch of the new year January 2015

It's over a year now since my last post, mainly because my computer threw a wobbly and finally bit the dust, at the same time certain parts of my aged old body seemed to want to follow that old tower to the local landfill.  More pills and a bit of determination because there are still a lot more things I want to do, has brought me back to the land of the living with so much to write about and draw. 

Then, to my astonishment, (honestly, I must be still on his list in Lapland!) Father Christmas left me a nice big bulky gift a few days ago wrapped in pretty paper, accompanied by more socks and hankies under the tree. My surprise package was a new computer, all shiny and clean with oodles of memory and as fast as 'Bluebird'. My old relic worked with mb, this one works with tera something-or-other and takes a bit of getting used to it goes so fast. The speakers are 'out of this world' enabling me to listen to the beautiful music that has always been the foundation of my existence through my whole life as my sketch pad and pencils were retrieved from the draw in the study.

I was amazed to see so many of you still reading the posts from all that time ago, and hope I can still keep you interested in some of the things that have happened to me over the years, along with sketches that I intend to post on this 'Blog' that I have a mind to draw this year.

 Thanks for stopping by
 All the very best for this coming year.